Getting there

My husband and I drove through torrential rain to arrive at O'Hare at 6:30 AM for a flight early in the morning. We flew from Chicago to London's Heathrow airport and experienced enough turbulence to keep my hands gripped tightly around each of my arm rests for the majority of the six and a half hours. In between my little fits of turbulence-induced terror, I finished reading a few fantastic books about the Victorian era and its struggles with public sanitation and disease. My favorite was called The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, and I'll tell you much more about it later in the blog. On the plane I read line after disgusting line about cesspools, and dirty gutters, and bedpans being emptied into alleyways out loud to my husband. He was most likely a little annoyed but humored me :).

We landed late at night, 22:40 European time, and took a bus to a hotel near the airport for one night's stay. In the morning we'd head into Central London by way of the London Underground.

The long escalators leading into the Underground fascinated me all week. You can see one below.